Liam Lawson qualified P8 with a lap time of 1:19.994 at the season-opener in Albert Park Circuit at the 2026 F1 Australian GP. Both Racing Bulls drivers managed to get into Q3, with the New Zealander ending one step ahead of his new teammate, Arvid Lindblad. This came after the Brit was faster throughout practice and for most of qualifying.
Speaking post-qualifying at the 2026 F1 Australian GP in the print media pen, Lawson mentioned he was pleasantly surprised with the result and the VCARB 03 performance overall. Even after a rough start of qualifying, he pieced it together by the end of the session.
“I think it’s what we were definitely shooting for, but we probably weren’t expecting this. Especially after Bahrain, it definitely wasn’t a track that suited us. We obviously brought some upgrades this weekend, and it’s great when on paper it looks great, but obviously until you put it on the car you don’t know. It’s a great feeling to know that it’s worked well this weekend, and to have two cars in Q3 is very good.”
Lawson praised the efforts from Ford and Red Bull Powertrains. “To have an engine that’s working very well, obviously we will find out tomorrow how reliable all the cars are, but we’ve honestly had a strong pre-season with reliability so far, and our long-run pace has been okay as well.”
Lawson states Racing Bulls aims to stay were they are after 2026 F1 Australian GP race start
After being asked about the expectations for Sunday at the 2026 F1 Australian GP, Lawson said: “The goal is to try and stay where we are, but truthfully it’s really hard to know exactly where we sit compared to everybody else with our good long-run pace, but I think the biggest thing is going to be having a reliable car.”
In regards to potential restrictions on laps to look after components and turn the engines down, the New Zealander added: “We’ve been running the car pretty much as we want to in the race. We’re trying to obviously test for our race situation. We ran that in testing as well, trying to put together race distances, and so far it’s been okay.”
Lawson felt traffic during qualifying wasn’t as bad as expected and gave credit to Mercedes for their result
Mercedes ended the last qualifying session at 2026 F1 Australian GP comfortably locking the front grid, with Russell in P1 and Antonelli in P2.
When asked about the performance, the Racing Bulls driver said: “We all expected it, so obviously credit to them. They’ve done a great job developing this car, but it’s obviously up to all of us to try and show something.”
He also addressed the fear and comments about traffic shared by some.“To be honest, it was okay. On the traffic side, it actually wasn’t really that tricky overall. It’s more just operation, getting these cars, making sure your battery is charged. We saw a lot of cars doing build laps today. It’s not really that cold, so last year we would have never done something like this, and going to tracks that could be cooler as well throughout the year, or even wet races, is going to be very, very tricky in these cars.”
Lawson is glad to return to Australia GP with a better result than last year
At the 2025 Australia GP, the New Zealander struggled in his Red Bull Racing debut. In his first weekend with the new team, he started P18 and finally ended his race early after hitting the wall as the late rain came down.
This year, Lawson is back at Red Bull’s sister team, Racing Bulls, and is hopeful to give a better show.
“Obviously last year sucked overall, and I’ve always liked driving this track as well in the sim, and I enjoyed practicing last year and getting used to the track, and obviously it was a disappointing weekend overall, but it’s nice to have a strong start this weekend.
“It’s a very fun track. Obviously very new cars this year, so a lot to get used to, a lot to figure out in tomorrow as well, and it’s going to be a lot of new systems that we all have to try and adapt to.”
